Not up to snuff

Story about last night's metal concert I forgot to tell you:

We were in line, heading into the venue, and this lady was handing out flyers for some other metal show. She was handing them to everyone as they passed by her, and as I came up I held out my hand to take one, figuring she was going to give me one, anyway, as she had everyone else in line, but then she refused to give me one. She had one outstreched, and as I reached for it, she held it back and looked for the next person in line.

Jeff = NOT METAL ENOUGH

The Hammer totally fell

If you're like me, you were at a metal show last night. It was Into Eternity, Edguy, and Hammerfall. It ruled.

The show was at the Avalon(?). It used to be called the Palace, or at least it was when I was there last, seeing Soul Coughing my freshman year of college for what will most likely be counted as my favorite concert ever. Anyway, we were there pretty early, and we got some seats towards the back (it's not a huge venue, so seats were nice) and we kicked back and drank JD. It was Emory, Sam, and I, by the way. Anyway, after a bit these two 30-something teachers sat down next to us and struck up a conversation (mostly with Emory, since he's the only one who really knew anything about any of the bands we were seeing). They were good company. One of the teachers got drunk and launched into a story that we all thought was going to end with her being molested but wound up being about how she first came to love metal. Whew! A molestation story would have been awkward. At some point I mentioned that we were all 25 (a lie, since Sam's 24), and the teachers looked at the ground and I said "What, did we all just turn into fetuses just now?" and they said yes. This surprised me, because I usually don't think I look 25. But Sam and Emory both have facial hair, so they probably threw off her age-assumption.

Into Eternity was pretty good, if a bit too death metal for my tastes (Being a choirboy, I prefer harmony over growling), but the lead singer was hilarious. He was a total hamball. Like, Nathan Fillion level ham. He did not take himself seriously, which is a nice thing to see from a metal band, because, c'mon.

Edguy was funny, too. The lead singer was wearing these ridiculous, Corey Haim jams and we were all sort of wondering why someone would wear those until he pointed out that their bus had broken down and gone away, and this was all he had to wear. The story details were fuzzy, because those guys are German. But still, the band was cool.

After Edguy, our teacher friends left to go stand closer to the stage for Hammerfall, and their seats were quickly taken by three Heinous Drunk Bitches. They were screaming and gossiping and not paying attention and were totally Heinous and Drunk. Boo to you, HDBs.

Hammerfall ruled. They are Swedish power metal... to the extreme! They sang this song where the chorus was "Let the hammer... FALL!" which was cool, and immediately after that song was finished the lead singer was like "This next song is from our first album. It's called... HAMMERFALL!" What? What the hell was the title of that other song, then? And seriously, every other song would have an extended bit where the lead singer would sing "Whooooooooooaaaaa" and then have the audience sing it back to him. Just variations on "Whoa" the whole night. It was hysterical. They lost me a bit towards the end, as I was getting tired, and the songs weren't as good as their opening bits, and then this awesome fight happened 10 feet away from us... but then they played "Hearts on Fire" and everything was awesome again. Those hearts were totally on fire. And burning, burning with desire.

The Poorly-Written Dark Knight Strikes Again

Exactly.

Transporting

Here's a statement that might be met with some derision: I'm really looking forward to Transporter 2.

First, some background. The Transporter was (and still is) the ultimate no-frills action movie. In this era of sensory-overload, needlessly complicated, guns-n-'splosions action movies, The Transporter stood out. It had very little gunplay. It had some really cool fight sequences, like the one on a bus, or the one where Statham beats up some dudes using his shirt (his shirt, people). And in Statham, it had a genuinely charasmatic and talented star. And it was efficient. I can't think of a recent movie that got to the point so quickly, zipped through its plot without any hesitation. Just barreled on until the end, and not a second wasted.

The plot this time, I hear, concerns the Transporter going straight, and driving these kids around, but then the kids get kidnapped, so the Transporter must save them. Yes, it's Transporter on Fire. Except instead of scene after scene of gruesome torture, it will be scene after scene of Statham kicking dudes in the head. Perhaps you have seen the ads. Perhaps you have seen Statham leap directly into the air while two cars have a head-on collision right where he had just been standing. Perhaps you have seen him beating up dudes with a hose. Perhaps you have seen that super-hot girl with the steel cable abs firing machine guns at our hero. These scenes will be awesome. This movie will be awesome. Between this and Serenity, September's looking very good, indeed.

Hilarity

If there's a better time to be had on Monday nights in LA than The Paul F. Tompkins Show, I'm eager to hear about it.

Last night's show featured (as usual, apparently) Dave (Gruber) Allen and Andy Richter, and Dave Foley, Samm Levine, and Jon Cryer were all in the audience.

Remember how I don't like people making out in front of me? And if I am drunk and raucous at Hollywood Forever I will yell at them? Turns out that if I'm sober and one of the necking people is Jon Cryer, I can restrain myself from saying anything. Imagine! Also, he was close enough to hit me. I mean, I could have given him a back rub if I so desired. It's an intimate setting. When I sneezed, Tompkins blessed me from the stage. (This paragraph reminds me of that bit in Scott Pilgrim 2: "He's famous and he talked to me!")

Anyway, the show was extremely funny, and Linda (yay, Lindy!) said that usually it's even funnier, so I'll definitely be going again. We should ALL go! It's only 10 dollars!

Oh, ew

God, let's hope this isn't true. Jeph Loeb and Joe Mad on Ultimates 3? Can you imagine a mainstream superhero title less attuned to Jeph Loeb's sensibilities as a writer? Because I can't. And Joe Mad's art, while indeed very pretty, will be quite a departure from Bryan Hitch. Anyway, fingers crossed!

How do you spell relief?

Apprehensive about matters over which you have no control? Might I suggest singing along with Weezer at the top of your lungs while driving home at 2 in the morning? I like to start with "My Name Is Jonas" and end with "El Scorcho," but you, of course, can sing whatever songs you damn well please. I just find that screaming along with songs that have sections that are just outside your vocal range is a fine way to take your mind off your troubles.

Tangential matter: why does my tape thingy that makes my CD player work with my car stereo not work in the mornings? This whole morning I would pop the tape in and it would just pop it right back out. This only happens first thing in the morning. The rest of the day it works just fine. What the hell?

Know-it-all

Mandy came by Friday evening to do a follow-up interview for the Comic Con documentary she and Quin are making, and I ended up going on quite a bit about the comic book industry in ways that probably made me sound very knowledgeable to Mandy and might make me sound like I'm talking out my ass to anyone who actually knows this stuff. Hopefully I was so long-winded that they won't use any of it. Also, I am not nearly so quick-witted or funny when I'm in a formal interview session, no matter how casual said interview is. Thinking back on it, I think I made air quotes with my fingers like fifty times. Odin did make an appearance, though, since he kept reaching under the door to my room during the conversation until I finally brought him in and put him on my lap. So perhaps an adorable cat will distract you from the inanity of my commentary. (They'll probably end up using hardly any of it, really, since the piece is supposed to be less than 10 minutes, I think.)

In conclusion, I'm still eager to see the finished product. Because Comic Con is awesome.

Corey, how DO you feel about kissing?

Mike speaks truth. Corey Haim's Me, Myself and I video is required viewing. See Corey play some sports! See Corey lounge in his pool! See Corey model some hideous clothes! Truly it is the nadir of 1989's popular culture. Emory thinks it should be seen by everyone who wants an idea of what the late 80's were like. I don't disagree.

Man, those clothes were scary. Except for the jams, of course. Girls flip for guys in jams.

Suppressed Laughter Comix

The trouble with reading online comics at work is that sometimes I'll read something as funny as this and in my efforts to keep from laughing out loud I end up making some sort of strange wheezing, snortling noise, which argueably draws as much attention as full-on laughter. Then I have to pretend I'm coughing, or something, and act all innocent. I bet everyone in the office thinks I'm a terrorist.

Hey, speaking of Bob the Angry Flower, let's not forget ORE SLEDGE!

Ah, ore sledge...

Does this happen to you?

I'll think of a really funny idea, and I'll say "Shit, I should write that down." But then I don't have a pen or paper or whatever and I'll say "Okay, I'll repeat the idea to myself several times so I don't forget." And then I repeat it to myself several times.

Then I forget it.

I sound like bad stand-up at this point, I know it.

The thing is, I have notebooks EVERYWHERE. There's one in my car. There's like a thousand in my room. And I have a Word file here at work entitled "Ideas" that is 25 pages long. And still this shit happens.

Scary Go Round

I'm not sure how to go about encouring y'all to read Scary Go Round. Its charms are many, certainly, and the art is quite striking, but it's a difficult strip to jump into right off. It's a serial, unlike most of the webcomics I read, and it's not very concerned with setup and punchlines. I can tell you that it has dialogue like this:

"There's something about you, Fallon, encourages a man to behave like logic's most hated enemy."
"It is my good manners and the insane wiggle when I walk."

Or this:

"He laughed so hard that he hurt himself!"
"How?"
"I punched him a'midships for his impertinence."

So perhaps you shall enjoy it. You can start from the beginning, or if you want a fairly brief sample, you can try the chapter entitled "Bulgaria", and if the sight of the baby vampire wrapped in a sheet like a bad cat doesn't sell you, I don't know what else will.

Did I mention it's British? It's British.

The wily hyphen

Looks like I wasn't the only one who had problems figuring our the hypens in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

So what now?

I finished off The Baroque Cycle yesterday at lunch. A very satisfying reading experience, all told, which is as it should be, considering the three books are basically just a single, 3,000-page novel. Now what on earth will I read? I mean sure, I have at least five books in my room that I've never gotten around to reading, but still.

I've actually been re-reading Snow Crash in the evenings as I finished off The System of the World during lunches. It reads much faster than I remember, but I don't think I've read it since high school. And and fast-paced and energetic as it is, Stephenson has improved immensely as a novelist since it was published. Heck, at least a fourth of that book is Hiro just getting various history and myth lessons from the librarian. But you can't do much better than Raven in the villain department, and the climax is a corker. If you haven't read any Stephenson, start there, then you can head to Cryptonomicon, and if that floats your boat, then The Baroque Cycle should be next. You can read Diamond Age in there somewhere if you want, but the narrative in that book kind of sucks and there's no ending. But all the ideas are fantastic and nanotech is kind of the coolest thing ever. Maybe I'll try and read that book again, as well.

Differences

If I'm channel surfing, and I come across a program called Face-Eating Tumor, that is not something I would voluntarily watch. If I were Leslie, however, that is how I would choose to spend an hour, squirming the whole time and saying "Oh God!" and "Ewww!"

Differences!

Fortuitous

Sometimes you drag your heels on ordering a certain book, since the only place the book is available doesn't have online ordering and you'll have to either call (ew, talking to people) or fax (ew, having to forge the boss's signature and/or actually obtain said signature) and that seems like too much of a hassle to deal with.

But then sometimes you wait a week from when you were originally asked to obtain the book to actually biting the bullet and ordering it, and in that week the pulisher's website has actually managed to open an online bookstore and you can just click on the book and get it, easy-peasy.

This will most likely be the highlight of my day. My job, ladies and gentlemen.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Where does the hypen go in that title? Between 40 and Year? No, I wasn't an English major. I have no idea what you're talking about.

ANYWAY, this movie made me laugh harder than anything I've seen recently, save for the "back and forth" gag from Me and You and Everyone We Know. It's a tad too long, but every time I felt my interest flagging another hilarious gag would come up. Hopefully now Seth Rogen will start showing up more often, so hilarious is he in this film. And why can't all movies end with a delightful musical number? Or more accurately, why can't all movies be as delightful so when a musical number comes out of nowhere you are filled with even greater delight? Huh? How about it, Hollywood?

Steamboy

It's pretty great. Visually arresting and good fun, but I don't know if there's enough STEAM. Could we have found a way to fit more STEAM into this movie? It's really short on STEAM.

(I am being sarcastic. If you are some sort of steam fetishist, then this is the movie for YOU.)

Get a room!

So caught up was I in the high spirit of seeing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary that I drank an entire bottle of wine. I went to refill my glass and found the bottle empty. "Oh dear," I thought, "I don't think anyone else had any of this." So I was a bit drunk during and after the film.

Then there was this couple sitting directly in front of me, and the guy was lying down, but the girl was sitting ramrod straight, which meant that I had to sit up ramrod straight to see the screen over her. And then the boy sat up and he and the girl started making out. But their two heads coming together for kissage pretty much blocked out the entire bottom half of the picture from where I was sitting so I had no choice but to say "I'd like to watch the movie, please!" I really embarassed everyone I was sitting with. But I couldn't see! Also, I don't like it when people make out right in front of me as if I don't exist. I'm just saying, if you do kiss in public, then you are asking for public comment on said making out. If you have a problem with that, might I recommend NOT making out in public.

Then when we were leaving the movie I sat on the hood of Whitney's car as she drove down the cemetary driveway because, you know, DRUNK.

Ha!

Okay, so it's no "Why No-one Want To Make Hulk 2?", but this most recent Onion editorial is still damn great.

Remember, remember, the... uh... 17th of March

So I guess V for Vendetta got pushed back to March, by claims that it needed more time in post. Which is a believable enough reason, I guess, but March is where you dump crap before summer starts, not where you put big-budgeted movies that had cushy November release dates that also conincided nicely with a key date referenced in the film (the movie was originally supposed to come out November 4th). Did Warners just underestimate how long it would take to complete the movie, or did they get cold feet over a much-hyped movie about a London terrorist? Who knows. Anyway, another movie I was looking forward to delayed! (After Serenity, which was delayed a million years ago, but still, I look forward to so few movies these days.)

Will-you-go-to-lunch?

"Will you? Will you go?"

I was all ready to go to bed last night when I realized Glengarry Glen Ross was on. Fortunately it was towards the end (where Roma and Shelley are trying to grift Jonathan Price) so I didn't have to stay up too much later. Seriously, that movie's like a black hole from which no light or Jeffs can escape. I'd say that's the movie I know most word-for-word, with the possible exception of The Big Lebowski. Of course I had missed most of the best bits by the time I came in last night, including Roma's dressing-down of Moss, but I did get to catch the 2nd most depressing scene in film history*: when Williamson figures out what Shelley did and declines to help him even a little.

"I think you fucked up my office. And I think you're going away."

Hopefully my life will provide me the opportunity to say that line to someone. Hopefully I will not actually be as big a dick as Kevin Spacey is in that part, turning a pathetic old man in to the police, but hey, that's a cool line.

"First prize is a new Cadillac. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is, you're fired."

Looooove that movie.



*The most depressing scene in film history is earlier in the movie, when Shelley tries to sell that couple some land and both he and they know they are not going to buy it but he just keeps trying and trying and it's the most pathetic thing in the entire world, ever.

Slugfest

Those interested in comic book punditry (aaaaand I've lost all of you), should really check out this thread over at Fanboy Rampage. Paul O'Brien wrote this column for Ninth Art, see, to which Tom Spurgeon and Alan David Doane took some umbrage, and Spurgeon's pretty reasonable about it and Doane's kind of a dick, and there's a big brouhaha, and then Kurt Busiek sweeps in on a winged horse or something. I find it all fascinating, and you most likely do not.

Most insular. Post. Ever.

Santa Monica is my enemy

Confession time: I resent Santa Monica.

Going to school in Eagle Rock and then living in Glendale, there was never much motivation or opportunity to go to Santa Monica. But doing this stuff with Sight Unseen has meant going out there, again and again, week after week, and partaking of its wonders. It is a shining, rich utopia and I hate it. Everything is so clean and beautiful there! And it's right by the ocean! And its bars are many and varied! And it's so far away and expensive! And those who live there almost never want to leave its warm embrace! Stupid Santa Monica.

You know, the distance between my apartment and Santa Monica still isn't as far as my house in KC was from Frank's place. And I went there CONSTANTLY. But LA traffic is a million times worse. And gas costs a jillion dollars a gallon. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

Movie revival weekend

First it was Strangers on a Train at the Hollywood Forever Cemetary on Saturday, then it was Wrath of Kahn at the Aero in Santa Monica on Sundy. You haven't lived until you've seen Shatner scream "Kaaaaaaaaahn!" on the big screen. Oh, and Clark, Cassidy, and TJ showed up, so that was nice. And why didn't anyone tell me Strangers on a Train had its big action climax on an out-of-control merry-go-round? I also really like how at the end the cop is like "Well, he has your lighter. You clearly weren't involved in any way. You're free to go." Well, sure. But by that time I had had enough wine not to care.

Ali K's birthday party was also Saturday, but I didn't know most of the large crowd that had gathered there. However, Kevin's descriptions of what he wanted to do to Ashley Simpson and Paris Hilton were well worth the trials of parking in Silverlake.

"You suck, surprising no-one!"

I got volume 2 of Scott Pilgrim. How much do I love this comic? Well, I'm looking forward to Pilgrim Volume 3 more than Harry Potter 7. Its delights are truly boundless, and specifically attuned to my brain. More girl problems (Knives lives up to her name), more Game Logic (2nd evil ex-boyfriend's defeat yields a Methril Skateboard), and more pop-culture references taken straight from my childhood (any comic with a character saying "How appropriate. You fight like a cow." has me at hello). Listen, just read it, okay?

I also got the second volume of Blue Monday, and sadly, this one goes off the rails a bit. Everything's going fine and it's all appropriately teen angsty, and then this giant otter pooka thing shows up and what the hell? Any comic that has an otter pooka appear out of the blue is on its way to crapsville (see: Generation X. No, I'm not kidding. I wish I was.). Still, everything goes swimmingly until then, and I hear the otter isn't in later books, so maybe I'll flip through the third book and give the series another shot.

I am weird

- I am currently using a parking ticket as a bookmark.

- Lately I have grown fond of wearing, with my teeth, a horizontal groove in the middle of my thumbnail, and watching it slowly grow up and out of existence. It is far easier to do a groove on the right thumbnail than the left.

- I believe the new girl in our department is afraid of me. I find this news delightful.

- I much prefer to read out in my car in the hot sun than read in the break room of the air conditioned office where people can bother me.

- While I wouldn't claim I "dislike" it, I am never possessed with a need to seek out ice cream. Even ice cream sandwiches, which I used to eat by the truckload in my youth.

- I spent weeks sleeping on a sheet that had a hole worn through it, a hole that, through night after night of usage, grew to enormous proportions, running the entire length of the bed and being generally a frayed, ugly mess. I finally removed the shredded sheet and just slept on my mattress. Getting a new sheet seemed like so much work.

This is what happens when you cross Clonus

Looks like the makers of Parts: The Clonus Horror are finally suing the makers of The Island. Now, I've never seen Parts, but I've heard from several different sources that The Island is oftentimes nearly identical, so I'm interested to see where this leads. Come to think of it, it was Mike who originally told me about Parts, when he, Paul, and I were on our way to The Saddest Con in the World. Mike's always so ahead of the news.

Yup, totally stuck in my head

Hunt, hunt, hunt
He's the Huntsman!
"Into action!" is his cry!
From the forest to the city,
He will run there in a jiffy
To sock evil in the eye!

Marty Feeb was a poor hunter
Hungry without dough,
'Til the day
He saved
A chunky elf
From being eaten by a crow!
The elf rewarded Marty Feeb
With a magic sack of corn.
He gained strength and speed and shiny teeth
And as the Huntsman was reborn!

Hunt, hunt, hunt
He's the Huntsman!
He'll whip the pants off the bad guys!
If there's an emergency
Sound the Horn of Urgency
And summon the Huntsman!
"Into action!" is his cry!
HUNT!

After work everyone should come over to my place and we can watch "The Huntsman" bits on Leslie's bootleg Freakazoid! DVDs. It will be GOOD TIMES.


"HUUUUUUNT!"

Not Elias Koteas

Here's this. To say this has been a topic of some conversation among my friends and I would be an understatement.

The thing is, it took us forever to figure out who Meloni was. I struggle with his name to this day. Because Elias Koteas found his way into my generation's collective heart the moment he showed up onscreen in a certain film in 1990 that, at the time, became the highest-grossing independent film ever made.

"The class is Pain 101. Your instructor's Casey Jones."

So in my mind, and the minds of many others, there was only Koteas, and when Meloni came on our radar ('round about Bound, I would reckon), it took me half the movie to realize that this wasn't my precious Koteas. I finally sorted out Meloni's identity in college, but until that time (and still sometimes nowadays), he was known as Not Elias Koteas, even though I hadn't seen Koteas in a single film since. (He was, it turns out, off making movies with Canadian directors like Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg. Movies I would not think of watching until much later in life. OK, granted, I saw The Thin Red Line, and Koteas had a big part in that, and his presence was about the only thing in that film to bring me joy.) Meanwhile, Meloni started showing up more and more, in enjoyable films like Wet Hot American Summer or more recently Harold and Kumar. Meanwhile, Koteas hasn't done anything I've seen. So it seems that Meloni is indeed here to stay. But Koteas will always have my heart.

"Hey, didn't they use this place in The Grapes of Wrath?"

The sniffles

I rarely get sick, and when I do the illness usually passes quickly, but no matter the length or severity of the cold, I always have the sniffles for a ridiculous length of time after the primary malady has passed. Each cold results in days of intense nose-blowing, followed by days and days and days of intermitent stuffiness. After my recent illness in San Diego, I finally was able to completely stop sniffing last week.

So imagine my total DELIGHT when on Sunday night I developed a horrifically sore throat and a runny nose. I went to work yesterday despite this, and when I got home I ate dinner and then passed out around 6:30, not to be completely awakened until my alarm started blaring at me 13 hours later. I woke up refreshed and completely healed, my sore throat not but a memory, except my nose was completely stuffed up again. Now I have another week or two of snorfling to look forward to.

Sure, I could down tons of decongestants, but my budget is limited right now and can't be wasted on helpful but ultimately unnecessay pharmecuticals. So I'm salvaging my last few Contacs, to be reserved for surprise singing engagements or functions where I might encounter single women. So most of my time is spent adding to an alarmingly high pile of tissues in my trashcan. My co-workers must love me, considering the wet honks that eminate from my cubicle about every half-hour or so, and the near-constant sniffs that occupy the time in between honks. They're all too polite to comment, though. Perhaps they are afraid of me.

ANYWAY, if my current illness can be atributed to a living being, pray it isn't you, for if I discover who gave me this cold I will hunt them and kill them with all my skill and guile. So sayeth I.

P.S. Being sick sucks.

The process

"And by way of the process, the means to control the global market." (Gold star to whomever can identify that quote.)

Anyway, I've been working on this comic strip for Leslie to draw, and I've got plenty of ideas for strips 10 through 25 or whatever. It's just the first three that are really stumping me. Set-up is stupid.

The weekend, and the adventures therein

Well, I'm glad I didn't promise thrilling tales from the weekend, because there weren't any, really. Sure, it was a delightful time, but to relate those times to you would fall into a rather repetitive narrative consisting of "Went here, talked to people, drank alcohol." Just a drinking and socializing sort of weekend, I suppose. The amount of Heinekens I drank on Sunday ALONE... well, it never cleared single digits, but it's still more Heineken then I am used to consuming in a 12-hour period. Also, this weekend took pity on my current pauper status and provided me with lots of free food. The last meal I paid a cent for was lunch on Saturday.

It was another of those "see everyone I conceivably know in LA" weekends. In order of appearance, I ran with high school kids, Santa Monica kids, Oxy kids, USC kids, and different Oxy kids. I don't say this to brag, like "look at all the suckers who will invite me to their social functions," but it is nice to know this many cool people who apparently don't take offense to me (or if they do, they do so in secret).

Since when is everyone's birthday in August? Bregan, Cheun, and Yaiza all had birthdays this past week. There's a number of upcoming ones as well, at least according to Friendster, including both girls I know named Ali who were apparently born scant days (and a couple of years) apart. Ali A. just called me earlier today, apparently having just arrived back in LA for a few days. It'll be nice to see her before she moves on to "old crone" status on the 15th. Apparently I had a thing for older women back in college. Then I graduated, panicked, and started dating someone 4 years my junior. But enough about my disastorous romantic life.

This post has sort of meandered, hasn't it? I'll let you go about your day.

Exclusivity

So I guess Jeph Loeb is exclusive to Marvel now. Except he still gets to write Supergirl, so "exclusive" is being used pretty broadly. These contracts were dumb to start with, and they just keep getting dumber.

Nanotech, baby

Oh man, yeah.

Via Warren Ellis.

Nextwave!

What man in his right mind could resist a series with a promo like this? Not me. Ellis and Immonen on a big ol' Marvel Fight Comic? Sign my ass right up. With Livewires ending (and if sales are any indication, it won't be coming back), this will fill my hi-fi, mega-octane Fight Comic quotient quite nicely.

I know, I've done a lot of comics posts lately. My life has been boring (to be remedied this weekend, hopefully), TV is stupid (except for Galactica), all movies are terrible (except for Me and You and Everyone We Know) and I've been working on writing and the like. I promise that this weekend will be cornucopia of mayhem for me to relate to you come Monday. Or maybe it won't. I can't promise anything.

More delightful comics

Top Ten: The Forty-Niners is as good as I'd hoped, since I've pretty much been looking forward to it since the original Top 10 series wrapped up in, what, 2003? 2002? Awhile ago. Anyway, this look at Neopolis' early days in the post-war era is just as jam-packed with detail as the original series, and the art by Gene Ha is a career best, which is saying something. It's the last Alan Moore-penned Top 10 we're probably ever going to get, so enjoy it.

Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life lives up to its considerable hype. (Or at least the hype it's racked up online. I'm sure most of you, even the comics readers, haven't heard of it.) Anyway, the plot concerns 23-year old bass-playing slacker Scott Pilgrim, whose life is going just fine until he falls for a roller-skating delivery girl named Ramon Flowers. Little does he know that in order to date her, he'll have to do battle with each of her seven evil ex-boyfriends (yes, that is exactly how they are described in the book). It sounds a bit precious when I describe it, but rest assured that the characters and dialogue are genuinely funny. I was reading this and laughing out loud in my room while Emory was watching Cannibal Holocaust. I got the better deal, I promise. Now I can't wait until I have the money to pick up Volume 2, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

The ol' karaoke

Man, Sardo's was packed last night. So packed that a good portion of our party only got to sing once, and some didn't get to sing at all. Which was kind of a shame, but what are you going to do? I sort of fell in love with both the karaoke lady and this other random girl, so it was a thrilling night of sexual frustration and sitting around. Yet I still managed to have a decent time. Josh and Courtney showed up there completely randomly, so it was nice to see them. And everyone, even all the people we didn't know, were really enthusiastic. And Sardo's is the only karaoke place I've found that has James' "Laid," so they have that going for them, too. Damn you for being so entertaining and so busy, Sardo's! Damn you!

Sick of Comic Con yet?

Well, too bad. Somehow the human hype machine that is our very own Liz neglected to mention that she co-wrote a summary of her Comic Con experience over at Bookslut. Or perhaps she mentioned it and I just forgot about it, because I am a bastard. Maybe I was on the phone.

Anyway, enjoy!

True enough

Joss Whedon: "The animated musical died with Howard Ashman."

Indeed. The rest of the interview is nice, too.

(Crib sheet for the uninitiated: Lyricist Howard Ashman, along with his composer Alan Menken, wrote Little Shop of Horrors, as well as the music for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and part of Aladdin before Ashman died. This is why half the music in Aladdin sucks. Menken's still alive, and did the music for several more Disney films, but he was never as good as when Ashman was around. Ashman is my second-favorite musical lyricist, behind only Stephen Sondheim.)

From the archives

Occasionally I'm in the middle of something (I do SOME work, you know) so I have to jot down possible blog posts on paper or in a random Word document I keep. Sometimes I opt not to put those posts up, because they're a bit too personal, or indicative of feelings I would rather not share with the entire world (Because the entire world? Totally reads this blog). But sorting through some old notes I found a few things that are amusing, and enough time has passed to give them some degree of anonymity. So, here are snippets of some rejected posts:

-"Are you ever talking to a member of the opposite sex and the whole time you're chatting you have to sing a little ditty in your head that goes 'La, la, la. I'm not attracted to you. You have a boyfriend or don't live in this city or are completely emotionally unavailable. I am not interested in you in the slightest. La, la, la.'"

-Addressed to some girl: "Wow, that's really great about your active, varied, and exciting sex life. Um, could we maybe talk about something else? Or, y'know, have sex? Either's good for me."

-"Emory, if you don't shut up, I'm going to tear off your leg and beat you to death with it."

(That last one's a joke, of course. Naturally, if I ever said anything like that, it would be addressed to Emory AND Leslie.)

It really was that bad

Via The Hurting, here's the most interesting comics-related things I've read in awhile: The Life of Reilly.

That's right, kids! It's the Spider-Clone! The whole saga mapped out for you, with synopses of every damn issue in the whole freaking mess, with commentary by Spider-editor Glenn Greenberg. Witness the birth, excrutiating prolongation, and eventual, merciful death of one of comics' most notoriously reviled storylines, whose story is a cautionary tale about the 90's comic industry as a whole. I, for one, love to learn about the process behind creative trainwrecks like this, and it's so very rare to find one so laboriously researched and presented. Plus, I actually read some of these books (certainly every issue of Amazing involved).

Also, check out The Hurting's post about the whole mess. It's an interesting analysis of the project. Just scroll down until you hit the image of the chromium cover of Maximum Clonage: Omega. I wish I was making that up.

Learned this weekend

-If you take a call in the middle of a party, and you go outside into the farthest corner of the yard to have your conversation, people will STILL yell at you to get the hell off the phone and come back to the party. I'm not bothering you! Leave me alone! I did not realize I was so pivotal to your enjoyment of social events! Although I was possibly on the phone for half an hour to 45 minutes. I don't know. I was mildly intoxicated at the time. But still, what's it to you, other party-goers?

-Paul, if given super-speed powers in a freak accident, would become a serial man-rapist. (He said it, not me.)

Fiction vs. reality

This season of Entourage has been pretty funny, with Vince being cast in the Aquaman movie and all, so imagine my delight when I catch the second half of last night's episode and the guys are at Comic Con in San Diego. Even funnier is that Drama is there for his long-defunct series, Viking Quest. Nice one.

Then Vince and Mandy Moore (his Aquaman co-star) do their appearance, and they're just kind of on this tiny stage in front of what looks like maybe fifty people and they just sort of stand there and wave. Oh, Entourage. You could have at least had them pretend to start a Q&A or something. It just looked silly to anyone who's ever actually been to CCI.

How funny is that Mandy Moor subplot, though? Of all the people for Vince to be in love with.

Best moment of this Entourage season thus far: A tie between Dinklage's cameo at Sundance where he tells off Ari and James Cameron's line "I just wanted to make teenage girls cry."